Preseason injuries during the fantasy football draft season are like car trouble just before a road trip. Sometimes you discover a flat tire, like drafting Chiefs running back Spencer Ware just before he suffered a right knee injury Friday night. Other times, it might be more serious, like a faulty transmission shortly before your scheduled departure. Such was the case with Patriots receiver Julian Edelman, who tore his right ACL Friday.

When these things happen, your draft board needs a mechanic. You have to break out your tool kit and fix these broken parts on your cheat sheet.

Always start with the biggest problem first, which is Edelman. In standard leagues, it doesn’t cause as many problems, because he was overvalued and you should have been skipping over him anyway. But in points-per-reception formats, you lose a potential solid WR3 option in Rounds 5-6.

Many immediately will elevate Brandin Cooks, expecting the new addition to absorb many of Edelman’s potential targets. Certainly, Cooks is in line for some extra touches, but not enough for us to give him much more than a modest bump — think for a solid second-tier option in the early third round to a top second-tier option in the mid-to-late second round — behind Dez Bryant but ahead of Doug Baldwin.

Likewise, Rob Gronkowski gets slight bump, but we hardly notice, because his lofty draft position is far outside our comfort zone for a tight end.

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Instead, the one likely to see the biggest windfall is Danny Amendola. But he comes with a big warning flag, that being his health history. He normally has gone undrafted in 12-team leagues. Expect that to change. The Madman certainly is interested if he can be had in the double-digit rounds. But if he rises beyond that, we lose interest because of his lack of durability.

Instead, we would look in the final few rounds to Chris Hogan, and in deeper leagues, Malcolm Mitchell. The Patriots spread the ball around, so we don’t concern ourselves with slot receiver designation, thus we aren’t worried about Hogan and Mitchell lining up on the outside.

In an upset, Ware’s injury (he is expected to miss at least the first couple weeks, perhaps much longer) does more damage to our draft board than Edelman’s, because it dramatically elevates one of our favorite mid-round RB targets, Kareem Hunt. Expect Hunt’s value to rise rapidly into the third-, or even second-round range, above Vikings rookie Dalvin Cook.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid has a history of leaning heavily on one RB. If Hunt performs well, as we expect he will, Ware won’t have a job upon his return. Charcandrick West likely will get some work, particularly on third downs, but Hunt even could cut into that eventually. We like Hunt better than Cook, who still has to fight off possible touchdown vulture Latavius Murray.

Elsewhere, Bills QB Tyrod Taylor is in concussion protocol after a hard landing in an exhibition Saturday. We’re not going to alter our draft boards yet. It is unknown if Taylor will miss any time. This does little to our draft plan. WRs Jordan Matthews and Zay Jones take a slight downgrade. Perhaps Matthews falls to a more agreeable draft spot (currently going around ninth round). Jones already was in the 14th-round realm, and we like his talent better than most in that area, thus we won’t move him, even if Taylor is out for a significant period.